Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[NotLambchop]

...
Sound money ( gold and bitcoin included ) WILL break up to it's real price in the future.

[Cortex7]

...
Sound money ( gold and bitcoin included ) WILL break up to it's real price in the future.

Quite fitting, your GIF rebuttal has as much substance as fiat.

It does look pretty though... weeee!

[cypherdoc]

Cypherdoc I'm curious what your thoughts are on Counterparty, if you have any at all...

+1!
Cypherdoc, Peter R. and the other cracks in this thread: what is your opinion?

prior to SC's, i was vocal against CP and other Bitcoin 2.0 platforms as well as other altcoins.  but that was only b/c i see all these things converging to Bitcoin in the end as the one money that will rule all and b/c the asset enabling platforms are premature.

but now i perceive SC's as the greater existential threat b/c it involves Blockstream trying to enable a source code change that will enable their own business model.  not only do i consider that unfair, i consider it a threat to Bitcoin as Money as i've beaten to death.  i don't want to see intra-protocol speculation built into Bitcoin itself effectively converting it into a WoW trading platform.

given all that, CP and the others become merely competitors willing to compete with Bitcoin on a level playing field which i am all for.  they may even push Bitcoin to become better which is also good.  the 2500 BTC proof of burn was interesting with XCP coming out the other end into the CP platform.  i listened to one LTB podcast of the core dev who sounded intelligent.  Patrick Burns is involved whom i admire.  i wish him well altho i still think these alternative asset platforms are way too premature.

there is no way, imo, that these things can get going w/o Bitcoin establishing itself on the worldwide stage as a bonafide, apolitical, secure, time tested, and generally accepted form of money first and foremost.  all those other assets and altcoins are Bitcoin derivatives at best.  we need to grow the market cap orders of magnitude greater in size and bully our way onto the Forex exchanges and into the gold/silver markets.  that takes years and patience.  we need outsiders to have to "buy in" to BTC on MC to participate.  but the great thing is, we are doing it.  it's happening.  but for this to continue, we need to avoid politicizing and manipulating the source code rules so that outsiders can be confident they are not buying into another FedStream system.  Bitcoin has evolved to a public good and NO ONE should be allowed to manipulate it except for purposes of improving its core function as MONEY.

[cypherdoc]

the rejection is in.  gold collapsing:

Swiss Reject Save Our Swiss Gold Referendum

https://smaulgld.com/switzerland-reject-save-our-swiss-gold-initiative/

[STT]

This gold mining argument still seems a bit silly and perhaps circular to me. We use gold (a rare and difficult-to-mine substance) for the same reason we need Bitcoin mining: to replace fragile trust. If everyone were trustworthy, we could use shiny pebbles instead of gold coins. No resources would be needed to "mine" pebbles, you just pick them up off the ground. Everyone would be trusted not to pick up pebbles he didn't deserve, and only obtain them through trade or in some other socially approved manner (perhaps as a form of "guaranteed minimum income", every person would be allowed to pick up one pebble per day.

Yea I always wonder what is the point to bitcoin difficulty.   Surely its not a self assembled mountain ready for the fresh ascent of miners every day in order to claim a prize.  It must make the protocol more secure right, some kind of offshoot benefit would be good to hear.   Not just we needed to stop it being easy to solve.   I mean if it werent for high diff we could process transactions in 1 minute or less instead maybe though I realise this makes cohesion of the chain harder

Let me be clear about this. Bitcoin costs zero to produce. If one had control over the protocol, one could instantly and costlessly create as many bitcoins as one wanted. No environmental waste, no effort needed. The same is not true of gold.

And he's right: if one had control over the protocol, one could instantly and costlessly create as many bitcoins as one wanted…

If is for children and shitcoins. A fallacious argument and failed attempt at philosophy. If I could find an asteroid made of gold and catch it with a very big net I could crash the gold market.

Not quite true, look up the California gold rush.   When western settlers first arrived they found gold 'pebbles' on the floor, literally. It had not been moved since the ice age since the native americans in that area placed little value on accumulating it.
Its still the case to a small extent that gold is just found on the surface not hard mined out of the rock.    You could argue about smelting or purity but a gold nugget found can just be roughly as it is if people wanted to and in some case nuggets are left as is

In comparison there is no easy bitcoin that I know of, perhaps we'd have greater worldwide involvement if some of those billion people could just get lucky and get some bitcoin.   I know in theory a block can be solved easily but its not a case of picking it off the ground is it.   I dont have a ASIC setup randomly trying, its almost pointless on old devices and worse then the lottery.
I reckon its a serious point that the common people need some access to new bitcoin not just those designing asic.   In Zimbabwe during their currency collapse people dug gold out of the river banks, hard work but possible with bare hands almost and it saved them from starvation in some cases.   Because of this accessibility gold is unlikely to ever be forgotten by the masses

[cypherdoc]

Is there a cheaper way? The current protocol uses what is called "Proof of Work" and there is very much something like a common resource problem here, with "overinvestment" in computing power (relative to first-best). But the community is working on alternatives, like Proof-of-Stake. But at present, there appear to be trade-offs. Cheaper protocols are also less secure, at least for now. But I expect a big break through in the not to distant future.

From: http://andolfatto.blogspot.ca/2014/11/bitcoiners-surely-we-can-do-buiter-than.html?showComment=1417191644448

Ugh. No. David. Bad.

yeah, that was lame.  what do you expect?  he's reading Tim Swanson.

[cypherdoc]

This gold mining argument still seems a bit silly and perhaps circular to me. We use gold (a rare and difficult-to-mine substance) for the same reason we need Bitcoin mining: to replace fragile trust. If everyone were trustworthy, we could use shiny pebbles instead of gold coins. No resources would be needed to "mine" pebbles, you just pick them up off the ground. Everyone would be trusted not to pick up pebbles he didn't deserve, and only obtain them through trade or in some other socially approved manner (perhaps as a form of "guaranteed minimum income", every person would be allowed to pick up one pebble per day.

Yea I always wonder what is the point to bitcoin difficulty.   Surely its not a self assembled mountain ready for the fresh ascent of miners every day in order to claim a prize.  It must make the protocol more secure right, some kind of offshoot benefit would be good to hear.   Not just we needed to stop it being easy to solve.   I mean if it werent for high diff we could process transactions in 1 minute or less instead maybe though I realise this makes cohesion of the chain harder

Let me be clear about this. Bitcoin costs zero to produce. If one had control over the protocol, one could instantly and costlessly create as many bitcoins as one wanted. No environmental waste, no effort needed. The same is not true of gold.

And he's right: if one had control over the protocol, one could instantly and costlessly create as many bitcoins as one wanted…

If is for children and shitcoins. A fallacious argument and failed attempt at philosophy. If I could find an asteroid made of gold and catch it with a very big net I could crash the gold market.

Not quite true, look up the California gold rush.   When western settlers first arrived they found gold 'pebbles' on the floor, literally. It had not been moved since the ice age since the native americans in that area placed little value on accumulating it.
Its still the case to a small extent that gold is just found on the surface not hard mined out of the rock.    You could argue about smelting or purity but a gold nugget found can just be roughly as it is if people wanted to and in some case nuggets are left as is

In comparison there is no easy bitcoin that I know of, perhaps we'd have greater worldwide involvement if some of those billion people could just get lucky and get some bitcoin.   I know in theory a block can be solved easily but its not a case of picking it off the ground is it.   I dont have a ASIC setup randomly trying, its almost pointless on old devices and worse then the lottery.
I reckon its a serious point that the common people need some access to new bitcoin not just those designing asic.   In Zimbabwe during their currency collapse people dug gold out of the river banks, hard work but possible with bare hands almost and it saved them from starvation in some cases.   Because of this accessibility gold is unlikely to ever be forgotten by the masses

it's way easier to get Bitcoin than an ounce of gold.  just log into Circle, input CC info and buy instantly.

[hdbuck]

the rejection is in.  gold collapsing:
Swiss Reject Save Our Swiss Gold Referendum
https://smaulgld.com/switzerland-reject-save-our-swiss-gold-initiative/

i dont get it. like scotland rejecting their independence.

[lebing]

the rejection is in.  gold collapsing:
Swiss Reject Save Our Swiss Gold Referendum
https://smaulgld.com/switzerland-reject-save-our-swiss-gold-initiative/

i dont get it. like scotland rejecting their independence.

Good news for them because that shiny metal in the long term is not going to be worth much.
Good news for us in the short term as it accelerates the inflatability of fiat.

[STT]

Yea hehe not sure if your serious but Im talking with respect to the total supply or large amounts.  I know bitcoin is easy to buy in theory but I can also buy gold from ebay with buy it now too, I guess not instant delivery but a nearby pawn shop would also deal me from my credit card.

Really Im talking about from the source.  The gold picked up off the ground in gold rush was no small amount, it was released freely to many different people.    It created mass migration but the actual 'mining' as such was easy.  
Even today, say 1% of gold might be easy.  Not in one place but all over the planet some amount of gold is just found under a rock undiscovered, this easy gold adds up to quite alot across the planet and its given freely.

This does not apply to bitcoin, you cant get free bitcoin from the source easily.   Whats the odds of an average person on the street solving a blockchain, its not within a million percent close to 1% even.   Im just wondering if that is a flaw that will stop btc propagating as far as gold has across all cultures

[cypherdoc]

Yea hehe not sure if your serious but Im talking with respect to the total supply or large amounts.  I know bitcoin is easy to buy in theory but I can also buy gold from ebay with buy it now too, I guess not instant delivery but a nearby pawn shop would also deal me from my credit card.

Really Im talking about from the source.  The gold picked up off the ground in gold rush was no small amount, it was released freely to many different people.    It created mass migration but the actual 'mining' as such was easy.  
Even today, say 1% of gold might be easy.  Not in one place but all over the planet some amount of gold is just found under a rock undiscovered, this easy gold adds up to quite alot across the planet and its given freely.

This does not apply to bitcoin, you cant get free bitcoin from the source easily.   Whats the odds of an average person on the street solving a blockchain, its not within a million percent close to 1% even.   Im just wondering if that is a flaw that will stop btc propagating as far as gold has across all cultures

i know we're coming at this from different angles so let me just present the counterview.

with all the ATM's, localbitcoins, and Circle and Coinbase, it seems pretty easy to get Bitcoin.  who cares about getting it thru the protocol?  gold, not so easy.  why would i travel to Zimbabwe to pick gold dust out of a stream?  yeah, i could buy it from my local dealer.  i think accessibility to either is a worthless argument as they both seem pretty easy to get. 

but, any found gold increases the supply on the market driving down its price.  why would you want that?  now, we're looking at ocean mining and asteroid mining as well.  at least with Bitcoin, the amounts can only go down thus preserving market price.

[cypherdoc]

the rejection is in.  gold collapsing:
Swiss Reject Save Our Swiss Gold Referendum
https://smaulgld.com/switzerland-reject-save-our-swiss-gold-initiative/

i dont get it. like scotland rejecting their independence.

Good news for them because that shiny metal in the long term is not going to be worth much.
Good news for us in the short term as it accelerates the inflatability of fiat.

yep, i think this should kick off the next Bitcoin rally coming out of the contracting low volatile flag.

gold has failed us.

[STT]

Gold is an element created in super novas not on this planet so to some extent its total amount is limited but yea price could crash from big supply but I think its fairly regular and been proven for a while.

More then asteroids we have vast amounts of gold on this planet.   They are locked into the earth core as molten lava though, we arent going to get it easily seems like but maybe one day.   Some kind of continual supply is inevitable, it seems to be in line with global population increase though

My point about finding gold is that this is a valued asset usable by anyone.   Even the 'savages' can find a shiny rock and access this form of currency.    Why does this matter to you and me stting here in comfort, its that we all start off in the world as nobody with nothing not even able to talk.   We must pick up the tools and make our way in the world and gradually gain the benefit of knowledge and wealth created by our ancestors.  It seems to me this is a vital part overlooked that gold is so incredibly accessible by a person with absolutely nothing in the world, they can just find it.  

Bitcoin lacks this, its elitest perhaps.  Increasingly its market involvement is being constricted to just those who can design ASIC circuit boards or those who can pay them for their knowledge.   It seems this could be a flaw that if you really want to build something great, you must allow the great unwashed masses of the world to be able pick up their tools and learn how to be involved in your system of worth and we cant exclude them.  Increasingly we only want people to be btc consumers and my arguement with capitalism truely applied is that the worth is always with the people not the elite.

Just a point and I might be wrong but its another major difference between gold and bitcoin and I think its an ongoing dynamic as bitcoin becomes more difficult and gold remains random in its distribution to even just a small part this makes it more a peoples currency.
  Which is more likely to survive long term and increase in value even

[Peter R]

This gold mining argument still seems a bit silly and perhaps circular to me. We use gold (a rare and difficult-to-mine substance) for the same reason we need Bitcoin mining: to replace fragile trust. If everyone were trustworthy, we could use shiny pebbles instead of gold coins. No resources would be needed to "mine" pebbles, you just pick them up off the ground. Everyone would be trusted not to pick up pebbles he didn't deserve, and only obtain them through trade or in some other socially approved manner (perhaps as a form of "guaranteed minimum income", every person would be allowed to pick up one pebble per day.

I think you're right.  In a world where everybody is 100% trustworthy, pebbles are perfectly effective as a store of value (maintaining the global ledger).  The fact that there's no competition to pick up pebbles beyond one's pre-defined allotment means that very little resources are consumed "mining" for this money.  So this seems to weaken Andolfatto's argument. 

So, if trust is perfect, no resources need to be consumed by "mining," whether money is digital or physical.  I suppose the question then becomes, "given that trust is not perfect, what system for money is most efficient?"  I think you addressed this with your earlier comment:

But ultimately, as with anything, its only "wasted" if there is a better alternative. If you are going to use gold as a form or money (or even merely store of value) than it is essential that trust be maintained by continually trying to break it. This is very similar in essential, underlying function to Bitcoin's PoW. You can't declare (by "fiat") that the oceans contain no gold or that asteroids contain no gold, or that Bitcoin miners will nicely and fairly take turns collecting the free coins that are being distributed.

But it is true that if there is something else that is more efficient as a store of value than gold (like say Bitcoin), then mining isn't necessary. Indeed if that happens the price of gold will plummet, and mining will essentially stop.

Haha, I felt I was on the verge of some new insight.  Maybe not...

[cypherdoc]

Gold is an element created in super novas not on this planet so to some extent its total amount is limited but yea price could crash from big supply but I think its fairly regular and been proven for a while.

More then asteroids we have vast amounts of gold on this planet.   They are locked into the earth core as molten lava though, we arent going to get it easily seems like but maybe one day.   Some kind of continual supply is inevitable, it seems to be in line with global population increase though

My point about finding gold is that this is a valued asset usable by anyone.   Even the 'savages' can find a shiny rock and access this form of currency.    Why does this matter to you and me stting here in comfort, its that we all start off in the world as nobody with nothing not even able to talk.   We must pick up the tools and make our way in the world and gradually gain the benefit of knowledge and wealth created by our ancestors.  It seems to me this is a vital part overlooked that gold is so incredibly accessible by a person with absolutely nothing in the world, they can just find it.  

Bitcoin lacks this, its elitest perhaps.  Increasingly its market involvement is being constricted to just those who can design ASIC circuit boards or those who can pay them for their knowledge.   It seems this could be a flaw that if you really want to build something great, you must allow the great unwashed masses of the world to be able pick up their tools and learn how to be involved in your system of worth and we cant exclude them.  Increasingly we only want people to be btc consumers and my arguement with capitalism truely applied is that the worth is always with the people not the elite.

Just a point and I might be wrong but its another major difference between gold and bitcoin and I think its an ongoing dynamic as bitcoin becomes more difficult and gold remains random in its distribution to even just a small part this makes it more a peoples currency.
  Which is more likely to survive long term and increase in value even

we have a pretty big difference in perspective.

there is just no way anyone in the developed world can randomly pick up a piece of gold.  that pretty much is true for most in the non-developed world as well.  and travel to whatever region that has accessible gold is dangerous, expensive, and impractical for the avg person. 

Bitcoin, otoh, is easily accessible for anyone in developed nations.  maybe this is the elitist function you're referring to.  but that's changing fast:

http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/

and with smartphone penetration increasing quickly to places like Africa, soon that will change too.  i'm the first one i know to have identified M Pesa as a good example of how Bitcoin could quickly make an impact in places like Kenya and we are now seeing that play out.  and it's spreading.  and none of this discussion assumes the ease with which Bitcoin can be used to transact btwn ppl worldwide.  the network effect has caused Bitcoin to gain much greater acceptance of Bitcoin as a payment network as evidenced by all the thousands of merchants accepting it worldwide today. 

the growth and trajetory seems pretty clear.  i think it was a huge warning sign that Bitcoin had the audacity to go up and touch gold parity in fiat terms just last year. 

[NotLambchop]

...
Sound money ( gold and bitcoin included ) WILL break up to it's real price in the future.

Quite fitting, your GIF rebuttal has as much substance as fiat.

It does look pretty though... weeee!

Substance?  As opposed to Bitcoin?
To put things in perspective, fiat has been ~x3 better store of value than Bitcoin over the last year.
You may now return to your delirium.

[STT]

no way anyone in the developed world can randomly pick up a piece of gold.

Im thinking about USA and it has vast unoccupied sections, like deserts and so on.   I realise thats not really habitable in some cases and thats why its empty but in theory, theres gold there to be found.   Im thinking even in the 1st world its possible to some extent

Im not slamming table on these points, just throwing it out there for discussion and maybe its the case thats its important to success or not.    I do believe capitalism is about people and the more the better, because all of us can achieve things of greater benefit with the right backing in theory


Also finding gold in developed world, watch this tv series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Sea_Gold    It is possible to mine gold and just pick it up off the ground right in the USA.  Not easy exactly but its there..


I hope you are right about M pesa etc, would be good to see

[Erdogan]

Here is one way gold can be viewed, nothing special, just another way:

Some gold is useful, that is the consumption part. We could include some of the ornaments, and the technical use in electronics and so on (not the gold used in indian weddings - that is mostly monetary). Due to the monetary gold value, gold for consumption is more expensive than what it otherwise would be.

Gold is distributed, since it can be found basically everywhere. Someone could not monopolize gold because of that. And even if it was possible, it could not controle the value, since the production is small relative to all the gold that already exists as money.

Gold production adds to worlds monetary gold holdings at the rate of 1-3 percent. This rhymes with a natural development of productivity, so prices of goods in gold could be even more long time stable than with bitcoin.

The resources that is used to produce new gold is governed by the actual gold price, just as with bitcoin. You just think of it that way, you think that someone produces gold from a mine, can sell it for marginally more, and that is ok. As long as someone buys it, it is wealth creation. The same could be said about bitcoin.

It is the straightforwardness of bitcoin price and cost structure that fools people into thinking that it is wasteful. In reality, it is the same as with gold. And it is nothing to cry about, the cost is reasonable when you think of the value the system brings to the world.

[cypherdoc]

no way anyone in the developed world can randomly pick up a piece of gold.

Im thinking about USA and it has vast unoccupied sections, like deserts and so on.   I realise thats not really habitable in some cases and thats why its empty but in theory, theres gold there to be found.   Im thinking even in the 1st world its possible to some extent

Im not slamming table on these points, just throwing it out there for discussion and maybe its the case thats its important to success or not.    I do believe capitalism is about people and the more the better, because all of us can achieve things of greater benefit with the right backing in theory


Also finding gold in developed world, watch this tv series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Sea_Gold    It is possible to mine gold and just pick it up off the ground right in the USA.  Not easy exactly but its there..


I hope you are right about M pesa etc, would be good to see

what's interesting about your theory is that it's inflationary in thinking.  in essence, what you're saying is that the money supply needs to grow to match the growth in population.  and that the new money added should be "free" as in being able to be picked up off the ground.

well, that's where we disagree.  early on in Bitcoin, everyone could just turn on their CPU and collect "free" money.  maybe everyone got used to this and are now arguing how unfair it is to have to go out and actually have to "pay" to get Bitcoin, either in the form of ASICs or on the free market.  i don't agree with this.  there's nothing wrong with having to "buy in".  and with Bitcoin, we "need" that buy in to develop the mining infrastructure so critical to security.  my other problem with this viewpoint is that it is inherently "unpredictable" in nature in terms of final supply.  in this system, you have to "project" your calculations into the future as to just how much additional money supply will come online.  to me, that doesn't make for a particularly efficient monetary system.  i suppose you could argue about how much BTC will be lost over time for the reverse argument.  but that could apply to gold too, altho maybe less likely since it is afterall a hunk of metal.  

but then again, this entire discussion is to ignore the seamless tx abilities of being able to send $millions overseas at the click of a button.

[brg444]

Yea I always wonder what is the point to bitcoin difficulty.   Surely its not a self assembled mountain ready for the fresh ascent of miners every day in order to claim a prize.  It must make the protocol more secure right, some kind of offshoot benefit would be good to hear.   Not just we needed to stop it being easy to solve.   I mean if it werent for high diff we could process transactions in 1 minute or less instead maybe though I realise this makes cohesion of the chain harder

AFAIK difficulty is essential to regulate the emission schedule of newly minted coins.